Restless Grounds
Restless Grounds
Podcast Description
This series is part of the Slow AI project, a collaborative research initiative that emerged from a growing discomfort with the ways artificial intelligence is transforming our world and how quickly it is being developed and implemented, while its extractive, colonial histories remain largely unacknowledged.From image generation and chatbots to facial recognition and predictive policing, AI systems are shaping what we see, how we remember, how we make decisions, and eventually who we become.Rather than trying to fix or limit these technologies, Slow AI asks how we might relate to them differently. It is not a technical solution, but a shift in orientation: toward care, collectivity, and refusal.Each episode features a conversation from our research group, comprising artists, writers, and researchers working at the intersection of theory and practice. These conversations emerge from our Material Playgrounds: experimental sessions that explored algorithmic technologies through artistic research, speculation, and collaborative inquiry.Messy, curious, and sometimes unresolved, this podcast invites you to imagine these technologies otherwise.This podcast is part of the Slow AI project, initiated by Mariana Fernández Mora and supported by the Visual Methodologies Collective (AUAS), the Algorithmic Cultures Research Group (Sandberg Institute), ARIAS Amsterdam, and funded by the Centre of Expertise Creative Innovation (CoECI).
Podcast Insights
Content Themes
The podcast focuses on the intersection of artificial intelligence, history, and culture, discussing themes such as the implications of AI in society and the need for a shift in orientation toward care and collectivity. Episodes explore topics like algorithmic histories and magical thinking, drawing on personal anecdotes and critical theory.
This series is part of the Slow AI project, a collaborative research initiative that emerged from a growing discomfort with the ways artificial intelligence is transforming our world and how quickly it is being developed and implemented, while its extractive, colonial histories remain largely unacknowledged.
From image generation and chatbots to facial recognition and predictive policing, AI systems are shaping what we see, how we remember, how we make decisions, and eventually who we become.
Rather than trying to fix or limit these technologies, Slow AI asks how we might relate to them differently. It is not a technical solution, but a shift in orientation: toward care, collectivity, and refusal.
Each episode features a conversation from our research group, comprising artists, writers, and researchers working at the intersection of theory and practice. These conversations emerge from our Material Playgrounds: experimental sessions that explored algorithmic technologies through artistic research, speculation, and collaborative inquiry.Messy, curious, and sometimes unresolved, this podcast invites you to imagine these technologies otherwise.
This podcast is part of the Slow AI project, initiated by Mariana Fernández Mora and supported by the Visual Methodologies Collective (AUAS), the Algorithmic Cultures Research Group (Sandberg Institute), ARIAS Amsterdam, and funded by the Centre of Expertise Creative Innovation (CoECI).
In this opening episode of Restless Grounds, we dive into the entangled histories of magic, technology, and capital. Our conversation explores how belief systems—from Enlightenment science to tarot, commodity fetishism to algorithmic “intelligence”—shape not only how we relate to technology, but how technologies are designed to relate to us. Host Mariana Fernández Mora is joined by Flavia Dzodan, Zachary Formwalt, and Carlo De Gaetano to think through magical thinking as both a historical foundation for Western science and a critical tool for deconstructing algorithmic systems today. Together, they ask: What does forgetting have to do with AI? What makes a dataset “magical”? What does a unicorn fossil tell us about the myth of objectivity? From tarot cards to financial systems, from emotional agents to algorithmic affect, this episode weaves together personal histories, critical theory, and artistic practice to confront the social, historical, and material dimensions of artificial intelligence and how AI systems reflect and obscure our histories. The soundscapes in this episode are courtesy of artist and researcher Angelo Custódio and were produced during the Material Playground he hosted, titled “Everything Evaporates.”
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